


Every Saint, Every Sinner

by sleepyMoritz (Catherss)



Series: Claw Marks [2]
Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Angst, Detox, Drug Abuse, Drug Use, Gen, Heroin, Hospitals, Hurt/Comfort, Matt Murdock Needs a Hug, Medical Procedures, POV Claire Temple, Panic Attacks, Sickfic, Suicidal Thoughts, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-05
Updated: 2019-02-04
Packaged: 2019-10-04 21:38:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 19,681
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17312300
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Catherss/pseuds/sleepyMoritz
Summary: Living in New York was so goddamn weird that half the time, shit might as well just happen. Like finding a man in her dumpster. A beat-up man wearing a worn button-down shirt with holes in the seams and sunglasses, at eleven fucking PM. In her dumpster.Or: Claire Temple, Matt Murdock, and the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad heroin detox.





	1. Earthbound Junk Ghost

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> No fear if you haven't read anything else in this series - the good news is that you don't have to and this can be understood standalone! If you have the time and energy, then Everything I've Ever Let Go Of is where I'd prefer for you to start, but you do you.
> 
> Beta read by the wonderful writers Pogopop and Dawittiest! And thank you Megan for the Spanish translations. Trigger warnings in the endnote, but the big one is vomiting. There is a lot of throwing up in this fic. It's gross. Please look after yourself.
> 
> Title from the Oscar Wilde quote, as used in the Connor brother's artwork: "Every saint has a past, and every sinner has a future."
> 
> Chapter title from Naked Lunch by William Burroughs.

 

Living in New York was so goddamn weird that half the time, shit might as well just happen. Like finding a man in her dumpster. A beat-up man wearing a worn button-down shirt with holes in the seams and sunglasses, at eleven fucking PM. In her _dumpster_.

“Jesus fuck!” Claire exclaimed, hand over her heart, then mentally added _sorry!_ half directed at her mother and half at the man himself.

The guy stirred and groaned and Claire’s nursing instincts kicked into gear. No way could she lift him herself, so she dumped her trash bag in the alleyway and called round at Santino’s place, since Santino wrestled in school and was the sort of boy who did what women twice his age asked him to. Luckily, he was in, and they managed to wrangle the guy out of the dumpster and onto the dirty ground. She slapped him lightly a couple of times, which resulted in another groan, his eyes rolling open for a few moments before he drifted away again. She could barely see in the muddy yellow light from the streetlamps, but dark bruising was blotching over his cheekbone, as well as some long-dried blood caking his hairline.

Santino looked between the two of them. “ _¿Qué vas a hacer con él?_ ”

“ _Supongo que voy a llevarlo a mi apartamento_.”

“ _¿Estás loca?_ ”

“ _Completamente. Bueno, ayúdame_.”

Together they managed to drag the man into the elevator and up to her apartment, dump the man unceremoniously onto her couch, then wrangle him into the recovery position. He groaned a couple times in protest, even blearily asking “Wha--?” before relaxing again into sleep. She snapped on some gloves and began a quick examination; the wound matted his short, unstylish hair, but it’d stopped bleeding, so at least there was that. Now he was in better light, his face was kind of familiar, but both her money job and volunteer job involved seeing people once and never again, so she half-recognised people all the time. He looked and felt on the bad side of skinny, but not worryingly malnourished - nothing a few square meals for a week or two couldn’t fix.

“Why not call 911?” Santino asked as he wiped his hands on his jeans.

“I don’t want to dump ambulance fees on the guy. If I think he’s about to die, I’ll call, but I think he’s just unconscious. He’s breathing fine, heartbeat is fine… I think he’s just out for the count. Drunk, probably.”

“And in a dumpster.”

“Well, sometimes you don’t know where life will take you,” Claire replied. “Go back to your mother.”

He shrugged: _not my circus, not my monkeys_ , and disappeared through her door. Claire continued her examination, pulling off his sunglasses and checking his eyes for signs of concussion. The guy’s pupils were highly constricted, and didn’t shrink at all under her pen torch. She’d administered Narcan to enough junkies to know that he was very likely on some sort of opioid, but he didn’t look like he was overdosing; his breathing was normal, his skin a healthy-ish tan. He was just high as fuck, apparently.

The guy groaned again and shifted, his arms flailing for a second, before he suddenly froze stock-still, eyes wide and alert, nose flaring.

“Welcome back,” Claire said dryly, sitting on the couch opposite.

“Where am I?” he asked, his speech slightly slurred and slow.

“You’re in my apartment. What year is it?”

He frowned, and she could practically see the cogs turning. “Why?”

“I’m checking you don’t have brain damage, since your pupils are pinpoint right now and they’re not responding to my pen torch.”

He shifted, grimacing, so he was leaning against the arm of the couch. It looked like he was really fighting to stay awake. “2017.”

“Correct. And the President?”

It took him a moment, but then his face screwed up comically. “ _Ugh_.”

“Close enough.” She pulled off her gloves and the man tilted his head strangely, not glancing up to the noise, eyes settling into a middle distance. Huh. “Do you have problems with your eyesight?”

He chuckled lowly. “You… you could say that.”

“Has it always been bad?”

“Well, it couldn’t really get any worse.”

Claire threw her hands up in frustration. “What does that actually _mean_?”

The guy barely reacted to her tone, that sleepy smile still playing on his lips. “Blind. I’m, uh, blind.”

A _blind junkie_ in her _dumpster_ at _eleven at night._  Fuck her _life._

“Are you a nurse? Or-- doctor?”

“Yeah, I am. A nurse, that is.”

“It... the gloves,” he said, lethargically miming snapping on a pair. “What’s your name?”

“Claire. And you?”

“Matt. Matt Murdock,” he said, then his mouth spread into a lazy grin, showing off what seemed to be a full set of teeth. “Nice to meet you.”

“Yeah, sure. So, how’d you end up beat to shit in a dumpster?”

Matt frowned. “I was in a dumpster?”

“Yeah, knocked out cold. What’s the last thing you remember?”

She didn’t know him well enough to overly examine the flash of emotions across his face at the question. He finally settled on an apologetic in grimace. “I was walking on my way to get a fix.”

“... Of…?”

His expression shut down. “Doesn’t matter.”

“Well, I’m guessing it’s heroin or some other opioid. I could always give you some Narcan and find out how you react to it.”

Of course, Claire would never just _give_ someone Narcan, but that seemed to snap him into some sort of real alertness as to what was happening. “You can’t give me Narcan,” he said, all panicked.

She gave him a steady look up and down, taking in button down shirt, his jeans, his inch-long hair and scruffy beard. His combat style boots, which were obviously the fashion ones, not real ones, because they were a brown, battered leather. Really, he looked more like a hipster than anything. “You clean up well for a heroin addict. Y’know, asides from the blood.”

“Well, I try to brush my teeth and shave once in awhile,” Matt said, drifting a bit, as though he’d already forgotten her threat to give him Narcan. She might believe the first part given his surprisingly alright looking teeth, but not the second. His beard was getting into what must be a few weeks worth of growth, and crept down to his Adam’s apple. His face really was familiar, too. While she mused on this, Matt’s eyes drifted closed.

It then suddenly hit her where she knew him from. “You’ve been at the Hope Shelter before, haven’t you?”

His eyes jerked in her direction, hooded. “I… Yeah. Not for a few months, but… yeah. How did you…?”

“I volunteer there,” she said, sitting back on her chair a little. “Small world, huh.”

“Small world,” he repeated agreeably. “I’m sorry, I don’t…”

“It’s fine. It’s not that often you get blind people coming through,” Claire said, which made Matt smile a little. “Probably the only reason I recognised you at all. Yeah, I--” She huffed. “I remember you helping this scrawny little teenager shave without a mirror because the bathrooms were full.”

Matt nodded. “He was called... Shit. Lawrie. Lawrence. He was a good kid. Parents kicked him out.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. He was… Gay. Or-- transgender. Something like that. I didn’t really ask. Did you see him around?”

“I did, couple weeks ago.”

Matt didn’t seem to know how to react, then he sighed deeply and scratched his arm. “At least he isn’t dead. I guess you’re the… the, uh, the unlucky bastard stitching up the junkies, huh?”

“Ha. Yeah.” Claire pushed her hair out of her eyes with her wrist, then came forward, swinging one leg over the other and resting her elbow on her knee. “You guys seem to get into scraps all the time.”

“It’s the comedown.” He shrugged, another smile creeping across his face. “Go outta your damn mind. Seen people swear they’d kill their mother for a fix.”

Claire snorted. “Never seen anyone go through with that, though.”

Matt laughed as he shifted uncomfortably. “I gotta get going. Thank you for all your help, really, I appreciate it. Did you… in the dumpster, was there a white cane and shades?”

“I have your sunglasses, but we can go check for your cane, though.”

He nodded. “Thank you. I’ll-- I should get out of your hair.”

“You’re getting dopesick, aren’t you?”

Matt was halfway to getting up and then froze again. “Yeah. Well. Soon.”

“Wait here, then.”

He lowered himself back down steadily and she went and rummaged in her kit bag for some wipes. She drew one of her kitchen chairs up to the sofa and told him to roll up his sleeves.

“Why?”

“I’m going to clean that cut and then check your injection site for infection.” Claire paused and clicked her tongue. “And I can’t let you wander out onto the street with blood caked on your face.”

He looked like he was about to protest, then his head pivoted down on an angle. “Okay. Thank you.”

She pulled on a new pair of gloves and he reluctantly rolled up his sleeves and, yeah, wow, that was a bit of a mess. Small red scabs dotted up and down his forearm with some splotches of bluish contusion, all centred around a deep, raw scab over his cephalic vein on his right arm. He probably had really nice veins before this, too, she thought a bit grimly. His left arm was much better, but still had some puncture marks and general rash-like spotting, but most worrying was a patch of red, inflamed skin in the crux of his left elbow.

“How long have you had this?” she asked, running her finger over the area. He winced - well, it was more of a slight tightening of his expression than anything else, and she wondered how much of it he could truly feel - and she withdrew.

“The hot area...? A week, maybe. Why?”

“Any joint stiffness? Tenderness?”

“I guess a little stiffness? I don’t know. It is tender,” he admitted, “only when I scratch it, though. I’ve had it once before after I accidentally skin popped. I thought it was bruising.”

“Bruising doesn’t feel hot,” Claire reminded him with a practised tone of _I can’t call you a dumbass, but please know that you are a dumbass._ “It’s cellulitis. Luckily for you, it’s easily sorted with antibiotics.”

Matt nodded carefully. “I can probably buy those from somewhere.”

“Um, yeah - how about the _hospital_?”

“I can’t afford that. It’s okay,” he said, as if sensing her completely exasperated expression. “I’ve heard the street stuff is just as good.”

Claire sighed heavily. “I’ll put some coconut oil on it to moisturise it in the meantime, but it really needs antibiotics.”

“You don’t have to,” Matt began as she got up to find the bottle of oil she kept in the bathroom.

“I’m already doing it.” She sat back down where she had been just before, and poured a little onto a swab to dab at the infected area. Matt’s bicep tensed under his skin, but his expression barely changed. “So,” Claire said conversationally, “how long you been a junkie for?”

“T-- two years,” he said, suddenly breaking into a full body shiver.

“Yeah? How you finding it?”

“Ah, you know, swings and roundabouts,” he said with a chuckle, then scowled, curling his other arm into his abdomen.

“Stomach cramps?” Matt jerked his head down. “It’s okay, you’ll be out of here soon. You want some clean needles?”

Matt bit his bottom lip, clearly surprised by that. “Sure. Yeah. Why do you have needles?”

“I hoard this stuff,” she replied with a grin, breaking open a new swab to start on his track marks. Honestly, there wasn’t much to do for them, but it made her feel better considering Matt almost certainly didn’t properly sterilise the area before shooting up. “Even when I was a kid. At school if someone had a headache or scraped their knee, they’d come to me for a bandaid or painkillers, not the school nurse. She was useless.”

Matt's mouth twitched upwards. “I think everyone’s school nurse was a bit useless. Mine once tried to put a bandaid on a cut that ended up needing three stitches.”

Claire laughed and nodded, a certain level of easy camaraderie over them, although Matt was getting more and more keyed up. In another lifetime, he’d probably been charming, she thought, but in a way that made her well aware he was doing it to hide something else. He had an easy but melancholy atmosphere about him. “Yeah, sounds about right. And I’m sure you already know this, but it bares repeating. Don’t share needles.”

“I know.”

“And don’t use them more than once.”

“Okay.”

“Dispose of them at an exchange or a hospital.”

Matt smiled a little, shaking his head; he was humouring her. “I know. I’m a professional addict.”

Claire snorted. “Yeah, I bet. How does a blind guy shoot up, anyways?”

“I snort it-- or, I used to,” Matt said uncomfortably as she started on the blood caked in his hair. A lot of people never really knew where to look when she had to get up close and personal with their faces; though Matt couldn’t see her, he was still obviously shying away. Embarrassed, maybe. “I lived with a guy who helped me shoot up, or my friends do it. I can do it myself, it’s just more dangerous. The guys at the exchange score my syringes for me so I know how much I’m taking.” He shook his head and shrugged. Claire put a hand on his jaw to gently push it back to where it had been. “Sorry. Obviously, one day I might take a tiny amount and it’s fent and I die anyway, but I’d like to try and mitigate the damage. I just have to hope that my routine is enough to keep me alive.”

Claire liked that. A bit of self-preservation instinct, even in a junkie.

“Some friends you have.”

“I-- I dug this grave. Now I gotta lie in it.”

Claire looked up at him. Matt had broken into a fine sweat over his forehead, and he was shivering slightly. This guy couldn’t be any older than mid twenties and he had this incredibly palpable aura of regret and sadness. A junkie coming to the end of the line. “You can always try to get clean.”

He laughed - actually _laughed_ \- and shook his head, his face setting grimly. “I can’t. I’ve tried. It doesn’t work. All my friends are junkies and I can’t afford rehab. And even after, where would I go?”

“You don’t know anyone who isn’t a heroin user? Don’t you have any friends or family?”

He shifted. “I know some, yeah. But they’re still druggies.”

“Beggars can’t be choosers,” Claire reminded him. “No family?”

“Dead. Or probably dead. My mom,” he clarified. “I didn’t know her. Other than that, no.”

She threw the wipes into the bin and snapped off her gloves which shortly followed, then went rummaging for needles. She pressed them into his hands and said, “You know, if you want to get clean, all you have to do is ask.”

Matt’s throat worked and Claire was surprised to see a second glint in his eyes, bouncing off a tear. “I want to be--” he whispered, his voice catching. “I’m going to kill myself if I don’t stop. God, I want to-- I want to be clean.” Whatever dam had been holding him back abruptly broke, and a sob choked him, his curled fist up to his mouth like it could stop it. “I was-- I was gonna be a _lawyer_.”

Matt would clearly never willingly go to rehab, and she understood what an incredible deterrent debt was to those who already struggled to get by - every day she saw people come in with their organs failing or wounds festering because to go to hospital for anything less than life-threatening injuries was a waste of money. She doubted he had insurance, and even if he did, they wouldn’t cover everything. So that left her abruptly realising that to turn him away might be to kill him, and him stuck between an addiction he couldn’t kick on his own and no cavalry to call.

She felt for him, truly. And she was the biggest idiot nurse this side of the Hudson with a couple days spare and no plans.

“Okay,” Claire said softly. “Okay. I’ll help.”

His head shot up and he swiped angrily at his tears. “I can’t-- I can’t ask you to do that-- it’s not safe. What if I’m a thief or a murderer or something? Jesus-- don’t _trust_ me.”

“Oh, I don’t trust you,” she told him, though a part of her brain was saying, _he’s blind, what’s the worst he could do?_ “I’ll lock you in here or chain you to the bed like in that YouTube video.”

“I can’t-- you can’t do this,” Matt insisted.

“If you want help, this is me offering. If you don’t, walk out the door.”

“But-- it’ll take a few days of your time,” he said. “It’ll be really hard.”

“It’s not me doing the detox.”

He shook his head. “No, but, it-- I might say some shit or do some shit that’s… not, y’know, it won't be good. I-- I can’t guarantee that-- that I’ll be able to be clean afterwards. I’ll try. But…”

“Have you ever been to an NA meeting?” she asked.

“No.”

“Then we’ll do that. Get you the help you need.”

An excruciatingly long pause followed. Matt was stock still, and Claire just watched him, waiting to see if this man could swallow his pride and accept help when it was offered.

“Okay,” Matt said, flushed. “Okay. Good. Shit. I don’t usually-- don’t usually, uh, cry. Sorry.”

“I’m a nurse,” Claire said reassuringly. “I’ve seen it all before.”

Matt suddenly jumped into action, wiping his red cheeks again and digging in his pockets. She had the alarming thought that he was digging for a piece (in his _front_ pockets? C’mon, Claire) but all he produced was a battered leather wallet, which he held out for her to take.

“Take everything in it. That’s all my money, all my bank cards. Keep the cash. It’s not much, but it’s what I’ve got.”

She flipped it open. Inside were two $20s, folded into quarters, and a $10, folded in half lengthways, some change, four cards - a NYCID, proclaiming him to be Matthew Murdock, born 21-10-1991, one debit, one credit, and a stamp loyalty card for a sandwich shop, half full. In the window where there would usually be a picture of family was a paper card that read, in block handwriting, **_IF LOST, RETURN TO (THE LONG SUFFERING) FOGGY NELSON_** , and then under it a number and address. The address was the same of that on his NYCID.

“Foggy Nelson. That your boyfriend?” she asked, only sort of joking. You never knew in New York City.

Matt bit out a laugh. “Best friend. But then I sold his laptop for dope money and— he doesn’t want me anymore, which— really, that’s fair enough. I just keep the card in case… well, if I die, they can tell him.”

“Well, maybe when you’re clean, you can go back to him. And alive,” she added.

Matt looked struck by the thought, then broke out into a grin. “Yeah. Maybe I can.”

“Hold onto that, because you’re in for a rough ride,” she said.

“What-- what about you? Do you not have work?”

“This is my weekend,” she said, then realised that she was about to spend all her free time looking after a junkie.

“Sorry,” he said, seemingly realising what she just had. “You can still back out. It’s okay.”

“I’m doing this because I want to. If I let you go, you’re gonna overdose, or keep on being a junkie until there’s nothing left of you. And I...” She took in a breath. “You get junkies coming in all the time at the ER. And there’s two types - those who want to stop, and those two don’t. You want to stop. And I am a bleeding heart idiot who can’t turn away someone who needs help.”

Matt nodded, his breath hitching. “You like crêpes?”

“Um-- sure?”

“When this is over, I’ll make you some signature Murdock crepes.”

Claire laughed. “I’ll keep you to that.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

Claire had never assisted anyone through a detox before - junkies who came in would usually get themselves out before finance could catch up to them, discharge themselves when they realised they couldn’t swindle any more opiates, or be carted off to rehab - but apparently Matt had done it multiple times. She’d feel more confident rooting around in some poor bastard’s chest cavity looking for a wayward bullet than look after someone kicking dope, but she’d signed up for this now. Well, every day was a learning day.

Matt apologetically ran her through the symptoms he usually got; cramps, paranoia, sweating, vomiting, and diarrhoea. “Sounds like we’re in for a great time,” she said dryly.

He yawned widely, wiping his snotty nose on his sleeve. Another two symptoms of the come down. “Fun for all the family.”

“So - I could probably get something for you from the hospital to help you through this--”

He cut in. “Don’t steal for me.”

Maybe she’d never spent long enough around a junkie before, but she hadn’t been under the impression that they had any sort of particular qualms with stealing. “Look, how many times have you tried to kick dope?”

Matt licked his lips. His response came quietly. “Four.”

“And here you are anyway. Okay, so detox may not be anywhere _near_ my speciality, but I know it’s a bitch and that most people don’t do it cold turkey. Now I don’t want to just be fighting the flow of the river if I do this. I actually want to change its course, and for that, you _clearly_ need more than just stopping.” His tongue rolled in front of his teeth and he inclined his head, defeated. “But I… well, I can’t leave you here alone until you’re too sick to leave.”

It took him a moment, but then he nodded, realising why - if he could leave, he could steal from her. “Yeah. Of course. Just keep me in the bathroom and lock the door when you leave. I’ve done this alone before.”

Something about that tugged at her heartstrings, but she soldiered on. “Okay, in the meantime, what can we do? Do you have any heroin on you that we can use to taper you off?”

He shook his head no. “I was all out. Do you have any kratom?”

“What, as in the--” She racked her brains as to where she’d heard that before. “The tea?”

“Yeah. It can relieve symptoms.” He shrugged and sniffed again. “It’s legal, but they’re trying to ban it. You can get it in some herbal stores.”

Claire rubbed her face tiredly and handed him a tissue, and after realising what it was, he smiled at her clumsily. God, she really was an idiot. She was _never_ mentioning this to her mom. Like, _ever_. “No. How are you feeling now? Do you think we could go to a run? We’ll need to pick up some other things.”

He seemed to take stock of himself for a moment, then nodded. “Yeah. I should be fine.”

“Are you just saying that, or will you actually be fine?”

He grinned. “You’re learning. C’mon, let’s go before this gets too bad.”

She sighed and lead him out the door, stopping to dig his white, battered cane out of the trash. There was a 24 hour pharmacy a twenty minute walk away, so they went there first, picking up some non-opiate painkillers and, somehow, found a couple of boxes of kratom tea leaves on a back shelf in the herbal remedies isle. With the box in one hand, she quickly Googled to see if Matt was telling the truth, and it seemed he was; a lot of people were hailing kratom for helping them through their withdrawals. She paid for it with the money Matt gave her, then they went to a store to pick up some easy foods and Gatorade. On the way back, Matt rerouted them so they’d pass his place, which was apparently a block of apartments that basically fit the dictionary definition of sketchy.

Though Claire had been somewhat convinced he was just going to go in there, find some dope, and not come out again, he emerged not ten minutes later. “Why do you own a _trunk_?” she asked, completely incredulous.

“It was my dad’s,” Matt said, hitching the hefty thing in his hand. “Well, my granddad’s first. It was one of the only things of his I was allowed to keep when dad died. Almost everything else got repossessed.”

“I’m surprised you haven’t sold it,” she said.

“I’ve tried,” he said, his jaw ticking when she looked up to him. “I couldn’t. No one would take it, and I found something else to sell. So I still have it, and his gloves.”

“Gloves? Like, mittens?”

Matt laughed, then grimaced in pain. He moved to hold his stomach, steps faltering, but his hands were either full of either cane or trunk. “He was a boxer. They’re a foam-horsehair mix, leaning towards horsehair, but modern gloves are purely foam, so a boxer today couldn’t use them. He wasn’t famous enough for anyone to want to buy his battered gloves.”

“Huh,” she said. It hadn’t been something she’d ever thought about much. “I didn’t know that boxing gloves had changed that much.”

“Oh, yeah,” he said. “When he started boxing, his gloves would’ve been purely horsehair and thin as hell - it wasn’t until the nineties that you started seeing just foam in gloves. He would’ve used foam for competitions, because it became the standard, but he couldn’t afford to swap out his old ones. You get a new pair every fight, supplied by the ring or your manager,” Matt clarified, “to stop you modifying or using cracks in the leather to your advantage. That became common practice mid eighties because some guy removed the little padding there was in his gloves and beat the shit out of his competitor.”

“I thought beating the shit out of someone was kind of the point,” Claire said dryly.

“It is, but not like that.” Matt suddenly stopped, his hands wringing on his cane. “I’m gonna be sick,” he announced.

Claire hustled him into an alleyway just in time for Matt to chuck up his guts. A passerby gave them a concerned look, and Claire said, “He’s fine. Upset stomach.”

When he was done, he groaned and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. Straightening up, he looked far worse for wear than he had when she first found him - pale, shaking, sweating, and antsy. “Can I get one of those Gatorades?”

Claire had already gotten one out ready and handed it to him. He rinsed out his mouth and spat it out, then downed a fair amount, head tilted back and throat working. “C’mon. Let’s get you home.”

He stopped to throw up again on the way back, then barely made it into the apartment before he was dry-heaving into her kitchen sink, but only managing to spit up some bile. She rubbed his back through it, the material of his shirt damp with sweat.

“God,” he groaned, resting the cane he’d been white-knuckling on the counter. “This is gonna be fucking awful. It’s already worse than last time.”

“When’d you last try?”

“Ugh… Christmastime.” It was late June now. “I moved places, my normal guy left town for a week. Thought I might as well try. Ha.” He spat into the sink then patted around for the tap to wash it down. “I’ll clean this. Where’s your antibac?”

“Has your usual dose gone up?”

He nodded, turning and leaning against the counter, hugging his stomach. “Yeah. I generally did about twenty dollars worth a day. Antibac?”

Claire dug it out from under the sink along with a new sponge. “And now?”

He gave the sink a grim expression as he began to wipe it down. “About forty.”

“Jesus,” she whispered. “How’d that happen?”

“Moved in with a dealer,” Matt said, then shoved the bottle of antibac to one side so vigorously it fell off and onto the floor as he began to dry retch again, barely coughing up anything other than stringy bile. He mumbled out a couple of curses.

“Do you want to shower before this gets too bad?”

He hunched over on his elbows, his lean body stretching and contracting as he retched again. He bowed his head with a grunt, then scrubbed a shaking hand over his face and reached to turn the tap on. “I should, yeah. I can smell myself.”

“Yeah, you don’t smell too great right now.” A trembling smile stretched over his mouth - putting on a brave face. She smiled wryly, her arms uncrossing. “Want me to look in your trunk for clothes?”

“Please,” he said around a cough. “There’s no uncapped sharps in there.” His voice was trembling and raw. She dreaded what all that acid would be doing to his throat and teeth.

Claire went back into the living room where he’d unceremoniously dumped the trunk before telling her to shove him towards the closest place to throw up. Undoing the stiff latches, inside was a bunch of ratty clothes; another pair of jeans, some sweats and shirts, underwear and socks. “Is the underwear clean? I don’t wanna be touching your dirty pants.”

Matt laughed, shifting on his hips over the sink. “Yeah, I think pretty much everything is clean. Did laundry yesterday.”

“ _Think_? Those aren’t great odds,” she called back, but picked out a full outfit for him anyways. She’d absolutely stuck her hands in worse. Under the grey sweats was an oversized hoodie with some Greek symbols on the breast, then _Columbia University Store_ imprinted on the inside of the back. “Did you go to _Columbia_?!”

“Yeah,” he confirmed, a little wry, his face tiling into profile over his shoulder. “Postgrad. Why, do I not look the type?”

“You could say that,” she muttered lowly. If he heard that he didn’t respond. Inside the trunk was, as promised, a battered pair of red boxing gloves, the leather cracked and creaking. He didn’t have any other meaningful possessions aside from his clothes; a SIM card kept in an inside pocket, a couple one hit kits, cotton swabs, a pack of lighters, a toiletries bag, baby wipes, and a red slip of silky material that she realised with a jolt was probably his tourniquet. It filled her with a strange sense of sadness, all of it - the fact that a man who was obviously intelligent, well-meaning, and charming could end up with a handful of things that fit into a trunk that had that old antique smell to it. It made her look around her meagre apartment that she kind of hated and think, _God, it could be so much worse_.

Standing up heavily, Claire went into the bathroom taking his clothes with her and started the shower running, since it took a while to warm up. She selected out shampoo, conditioner, and a bar of soap for him, laying them along one side of her bathtub/shower to make it easier for him to find, then dug a towel out of the closet. He shuffled over, his cane tapping out against the ground and open door frame.

“Right room?” he asked.

“Yup,” she said, then explained where she’d put everything for him. “If you need a hand, just shout.”

“Thanks,” he said softly. “And, listen, if I get to be too much during all of this… Please, just kick me out.”

“You’ll be fine--”

Matt reached out for her, first with the back of his fingers finding her hip then shifting so he had her wrist in his hand. “No. Claire. I’m being serious. I don’t know what I might do.” He let go of her abruptly, the noise of the shower running being the only thing she could hear for a long moment. “I won’t hurt you. But I might say some hurtful things.”

Claire shrugged insouciantly. “Well, I once had a patient tell me I was going to die alone watching _Frozen_ , so I don’t think it could get much worse than that.”

Matt shook his head, smiling a little in spite of himself. “Okay, Claire. Thank you.”

She left him to it so she could Google what else she might need to know. The worst really was still yet to come; if he was telling the truth about when he had last self-medicated, then he was about to roll into the worst of the symptoms. Just as she read that, she heard him retch again. God, this was gonna be _bad_.

 

 

* * *

 

 

At eleven PM the next day, twenty four hours after Claire found him, Matt’d locked himself in the bathroom promising that he’d clean up afterwards. In all, that was  _ not  _ promising.

Between the moments where things seemed almost normal, he had snapped at her, complained about the temperature, and downed ibuprofen, paracetamol and anti-diarrheals only to chuck them up again a few minutes later. As a whole, it was was utterly horrendous, and though he was by no means an easy houseguest, he was taking a surprising amount of it all on his chin without complaint.

The problem really was that there wasn’t much she could actually do to help. Every once in a while, Matt emerged for a short burst at a time, usually asking for more kratom tea. After, he’d down it and maybe choke down some more crackers, make a few uneasy jokes, then he’d suddenly bolt to the bathroom, and that’d be the last she’d see of him for a while. Once, he’d choked on vomit whilst hunched over the toilet, trying desperately to draw in a breath through the bile in his throat. Claire burst in, helped him dislodge it, and Matt blinked up to the ceiling with teary eyes looking like he wanted nothing more than to just give up. Instead, he asked her if she had a rosary and the two of them sat on the bathroom floor, muddling through the Sorrowful Mysteries. It was the only one Matt could remember even close to in full, with a little help from Claire’s googling. He looked sad about that, too; “I used to know all of them.”

She slept in the living room that night, hoping that she’d catch him if he tried to sneak out (or come to his rescue if he choked again), but as far as she could tell, he didn’t catch a break at all. He wasn’t in a fit state to go anywhere. She periodically dropped off more Gatorade and food, but then he’d mumbled that the drink was beginning to get tiring on its way back up, so she made him a salt and sugar water mix, which should be more hydrating than the stuff from the tap. As about thirty hours rolled round and dawn was flooding her living room with light, she knocked on the bathroom door and said, “I’m going to head out to get you some buprenorphine. I want you to eat and drink something before I leave.”

“I’m just gonna throw it up again,” he groaned, his voice raw.

“I know, but you need to anyways,” she said, using her work nursing tone. “Okay, are you decent?”

“No, just-- just gimme a second.”

Claire heard the shower run, which made her think that he’d either thrown up or had a bout of the runs in the tub, and vowed to bleach it as soon as she could. She’d shower at work, since her bathroom was otherwise commandeered. Hopefully, whatever she could get from the hospital would help.

When she finally got into the bathroom, was a nice surprise to see that it wasn’t a total warzone. Matt had abandoned his shirt and sweat was rolling off his flushed skin in beads; in the tub, his tee was balled up, probably using it as a pillow. With his abdomen tight against the cramps, she could see muscle flexing under every harsh exhale. Figured he’d rather hole away in here than just take the couch.  His heaving ribs were much more defined than she’d initially realised, and his collarbones poked up through his skin. It made him look a bit emaciated, and no doubt how dehydrated and starved he was wouldn’t be helping with that.

“Yeah, you definitely need to eat something,” Claire informed him, breaking open the packet of crackers and a jar of peanut butter.

Matt grinned, but it was far more a grimace, sitting back on the edge of the tub, his leg bouncing manically. “I thought the heroin chic look was in?”

“You’re about twenty years late there, pal.” Claire handed him a couple of crackers and the peanut butter to dip them in, plus a bottle of sugar-salt water. Matt tried to scarf down the drink as fast as he had the food, but she stopped him. “You’ll definitely throw up if you try to drink that all at once.”

“Gonna throw up regardless,” he said thickly through a mouth of peanut butter.

“You’re doing okay right now,” she said.

“That’s ‘cause I’m in the middle of a hot flush,” he said, surprisingly jovial given how God-awful he looked right now. “Once I’m shivering again, I’ll be back at it. Y’know, William Burroughs said that there’s always that _one_ symptom of a withdrawal that’s _your_ symptom - the one that makes you give up.”

Claire was abruptly reminded that Matt went to Columbia; he’d probably read authors she’d never even heard of. Her college education was far less impressive, though she’d graduated top of her class. She wondered idly if his family had come across money at some point to be able to afford it, though the way he’d spoken about his dad made her think maybe he relied on scholarships. “Yeah? What’s yours?”

“Definitely hot flushes,” he said, his head tilting upwards, his gaze coming close to meeting hers, if she just shifted a centimetre to the left. The dawn light streaming in from the window suddenly caught on his face and sweaty hair as he moved, making his unfocused eyes stunningly clear - honeyed brown, she realised, the iris just visible around a blown-out pupil. He was a junkie and a Columbia grad and the son of a boxer and he had brown eyes. He’d lived so much to get to this one point in her bathroom, so many ups and downs and probably more anyone’s fair share of dark days. Softly, he carried on. “Makes me feel like I’m in hell early.”

It didn’t seem like a joke. “To be honest, I think if I could look in on hell, this’d probably be pretty close to it,” she admitted, leaning against cool tiles. “I’m not sure how you could do this four times and not want to just give up.”

“Ah, that’s the Catholicism,” Matt said, his lips playing into a half-hearted smile. “Suicide is a sin.”

It was clearly supposed to be a joke, but there was so much latently wrong with the way Matt just-- _existed_ that it was difficult to see the humour. She handed him the rest of the crackers and another couple bottles of drink. “I want all of these gone by the time I get back.”

“I’ll try.” He seemed like he meant it.

“Okay,” she said softly. “See you later. I’m going to put a clothes wash on while I’m gone, and I found an ex’s old t-shirt, so you’ll have another shirt to wear.”

“Wait, Claire--” She turned back to Matt. He looked shaken, desperate. For a second, she thought he was going to ask her to get him more dope. But his mouth just worked uselessly for a moment. “Thank you. I mean it. This was an incredibly selfless thing to do.”

Claire accepted the thanks with the bow of her head. “No problem.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

Feeling much better after showering and getting out of her apartment, Claire returned back with a basketful of warm, clean clothes from her building’s laundry room. Though she half expected for her electronics to be cleared out, Matt was retching in the bathroom when she unlocked her door and everything was still in place. She wondered what she was going to do when she had to go to work tomorrow as she knocked on the bathroom door.

“You decent?”

“Yeah,” he said. When she opened the door, he was lying in the bathtub in a fetal position, his body tightly wound and shivering despite the fact he was bundled up in his jacket, a blanket, and what looked to be her scarf from the hatstand.

“Want a new shirt?”

He nodded mutely and began attempting to strip off his layers, the effort of it making him grunt, but his t-shirt got caught on his head. She tried to help him tug it off, but he flinched away when her fingers brushed his bare, clammy skin.

“D-- don’t--”

“Sorry.”

He collapsed back down before he put it on, grunting in pain and clutching his torso. “J-- Jesus--” he stuttered. “I feel like I’ve been beat-- beat on.”

He moaned and Claire hummed sympathetically. So much for the macho I’ll-be-alright show before. “I got you some Suboxone. Should be enough to see you through seven days.” The timing actually worked out well; if you used Suboxone too early, it'd worsen withdrawals significantly. It was better to use it at the start of the end. She’d made the decision to hold back on the antibiotics until he wasn’t going to just throw them up again. “You’re due some more kratom too, but I think you should only have one or the other. I don’t know how they’ll interact.”

“Both?”

“No. One or the other.”

“Ugh,” he mumbled. “Bupe. Please.”

She pushed a 8mg Suboxone tablet out of the blister packaging, the trade brand of buprenorphine. It was salmon pink, hexagonal, with N8 on one side and what might be a dagger or a cross on the other. Thinking about how much she’d rather be doing this in a hospital, she pressed it into his palm. He didn’t do anything. “You’re supposed to hold it under your tongue. Don’t swallow it, or your saliva, if you can avoid it. And don’t try to talk.”

“I don’t want to take this.”

Claire wanted to hit her head against the wall. “Why?”

“I j-- just want dope,” Matt mumbled. He said it again, firmer, pushing himself upright in the tub and half-turning to her, an arm wrapped around his stomach. “I want dope.”

“I know. You’re still not getting any. The Suboxone will help.”

He paused, taking that in. “It hurts,” he whined, any of the hard edge that had been in his voice melting away to something that-- well, if he hadn’t been asking for heroin, would’ve been pretty sympathetic. But he was asking for heroin and she wasn’t an idiot. He was attempting to manipulate her. “Please.”

“No, Matt. Take your medication.”

“Please, Claire-- just a little, it’d only be a few dollars. I even gave you money--”

“ _No_.” This time, she said it so sharply he actually recoiled a little bit, head bowing. The uneasy silence was filled with the noise of his leg bouncing restlessly, his breaths coming hard through his nose.

“I just need a little to get me through the worst of it. Then I’ll be clean. I’ll-- I’ll get you money, I just need a little bit, alright? Please.” He was babbling, desperate.

“You’re going to be clean now, if you carry on.” Despite her firm tone, she hated to see a patient like this - completely out of his mind from dope sickness and willing to try anything to just stop the goddamn pain - it wasn’t easy to watch. He didn’t seem like the kind of person to beg easily, and she wondered just how bad the pain was for him too resort to it.

Matt’s eyes widened, like he was suddenly struck with an idea. His pupils were incredibly blown out. “Do you want something? If-- if-- if you want something, that’s okay.”

“What?” she asked, not really following.

“For the dope, it’s okay, I know I don’t get it for nothing,” he said, his trembling fingers reached out to her, a little off target. Mostly because it seemed like the right thing to do, Claire met him in the middle. She realised that he was completely still, possibly for the first time since the detox had really started. “It’s okay. I’ll do whatever you want.”

“What I want,” she said softly, “is for you to get clean.”

Matt’s grip slid so his cold fingers rested over the pulse point in her wrist. “It’s not what you want. It’s what you need.” He smiled, all soft, his head tilted back a little, half cocky, half vulnerable. It seemed deceptively like a moment of lucidity. “I can give it to you.”

Claire dropped her hand abruptly, heart jumping to her throat. Holy _shit_ , had he really just-- _propositioned_ her? He was in the middle of god-awful withdrawals - there was no way he could even be _considering_ sex. It made her wonder what, exactly, had made him jump to that as an out, but the answer was uncomfortably clear. “Take your meds. Before I force you to.”

He rocked forward and his leg started bouncing again. Then he said, “Ugh,” popped the Suboxone into his mouth and slumped back down again, like he’d only been keeping himself upright for the sake of appearances. Drawing his legs up to his chest and tucking his nose down, he looked small and utterly defeated.

Claire took a couple of steadying breaths. “Matt…”

“I’ll feel better if I can j-- just get some dope,” he hissed, his tone going more accusatory. “I just want to feel better. Jesus.”

“I’m not hurting you,” Claire sighed, the implication to his words clear.

Matt just sneered. “Not hurting me. Yeah. Sure. Then why do I hurt?”

It was an ugly accusation, one that almost made her snap about how much she was doing for him. But instead, she just sucked in a breath, and perched on the rim of the tub, watching him. Patients didn’t have to be grateful to deserve good treatment. Furthermore, it was a losing battle to expect people in pain to act rationally. She knew that as well as anyone.

So she willed herself to let it go. “Just don’t try to talk, okay? It doesn’t work if you swallow it.”

Claire pulled out her phone and just scrolled social media whilst she waited for Matt to finish with the buprenorphine. Slowly, Matt’s face changed from an angry scowl to something more neutral, his body winding tighter. Claire wanted to say something to make it better, but there wasn’t anything she could think of. She didn’t know him well enough to know what would comfort him in the moment.

But it was Matt who spoke first, five minutes later, beginning with a short hum, maybe to get her attention. “I’m sorry,” he mumbled. “Please don’t kick me out.”

It was, generally speaking, bad news to get too attached to a patient. A degree of empathy was helpful (though surprisingly absent in many of her coworkers) but she’d been around Matt practically every waking moment of the past three days and had been witness to a supernova level of collapse. This was the beginning of faculties coming back online, the knowledge that he _could_ walk out being reinstated. There was nothing stopping him, really. He might throw up a little - or a lot - along the way, but if he really wanted, he could have a needle in his arm by the end of the hour. It was simple willpower that was the only thing between him and mercy. She would beg, too. “It’s okay.”

“I’m so sorry,” he repeated. “I’m just-- I’m sick. I’m r-- really goddamn sick. This is killing me.” His shoulders jerked, a curved movement like he was trying to get his shoulders smaller. “That used to work.”

“Well, buy me dinner when you’re a year clean, and we’ll see how it goes.” A pause. Then Matt chuckled, a genuine laugh that made some of the tightness in his expression dissipate. Some of the tension in the air distilled, she glanced at the back of the packaging for all the health warnings. She chuckled softly, and he turned his head, curious despite himself. “It’s funny that they warn you not to snort it,” Claire explained. “But it never would have occurred to me to snort it unless they said that.”

“C-- Clearly not a junkie,” Matt chattered. His skin was suddenly goose pimpled again. “I shot up speed once cause it was b-- better than nothing. Snort talc if it’d g-- get you high. Get--” He made a gesture next to his forearm, miming shooting up. “P-- Poke yourself cause even that f-- feels good.”

Claire frowned, trying to untangle that. “You mean you put the syringe in yourself regardless of if you have heroin because it feels good?” He nodded. “Why?”

“Get this rush cause y-- you’ve tricked your brain.” His mouth split into a wild grin. “I can’t s-- s-- see the dope anyways.”

She chuckled at that. “Okay, well, I think you should move into the living room,” she said gently. “You’re not going to be helping the pain if you’re uncomfortable.”

He shook his head childishly. “I’m f-- fine.”

“It’s not good for you to be cramped up like that,” Claire reasoned. “You need to have some space to breathe.”

“I don’t want to,” he groaned, but drew himself up anyways. As he pushed himself out of the tub, Claire put a steadying hand on his arm to help, but Matt recoiled into himself. “I’ll be there in a s-- second.”

“You okay?”

Matt nodded insistently, his face suddenly deeply flushed, and twisted so he was leaning over the sink like he was about to retch again, but all he did was white-knuckle the porcelain. “Can I get some new clothes, too?”

She suddenly remembered that hypersensitivity was a super common effect of withdrawals. “Sure,” Claire said easily, absolutely not addressing the fact that Matt _probably_ had a boner right now, especially not after what she was pretty sure he’d offered her. She’d seen far too many mortified patients to ever really care about bodily reactions, especially not arousal - erections could happen for the absolute weirdest reasons and most of the time in a medical setting meant nothing more than dicks getting confused at sensations or a burst of adrenaline. “I’ll get you some.”

The moment Claire shut the door behind her, Matt let out a muffled groan. She just made a beeline to his trunk and tried not to think about it.

 

 

* * *

 

 

That evening, Matt finally joined her more or less permanently in the living room, curled up on the couch. Every ten minutes or so he’d jump up, pace for a little while restlessly, then collapse back down again, shuddering with pain. He finally ate something more substantial, picking out of all things Froot Loops to inhale, and somehow actually managed to keep them down long enough she was pretty sure he’d actually gotten some nutrition from them, if there was any nutrition to be had. To be safe, she gave him some multivitamins and supplements too. He endured another bad bout of sweating himself to freezing, so she gave the tub a clean then ran him a bath while he was supposed to be making an attempt to nap.

But he was summoned easily, and the moment Matt dipped his fingers into it, he groaned in utter joy and began stripping off his clothes immediately, not caring where they ended up. Claire laughed, picked up and folded them and left him to it before he got down to his underwear. Through the walls she heard the water shift in the tub like he was getting out multiple times, retching a couple of times or just ominous silence the rest, but it wasn’t until an hour later that he properly emerged, hair damp and skin flushed. He’d dressed himself in new sweats rolled up to his knees, but apparently decided to forego a shirt, probably because of how badly he was sweating. Instead he had a towel in his hands, which he lay over the back of the couch before slumping into it.

He hadn’t asked for more buprenorphine, but it was clear that it wasn’t working how it was supposed to - it should essentially stop all withdrawal symptoms - so she gave him another 8mg which he took with a wordlessly thankful expression. Most patients did start out on 16mg or more, but she’d been hesitant to just  _ give  _ him medication, especially given the side effects of the drug, which was essentially the exact same side effects of going through a detox but to a lesser extent.  It would be better to ease him into it.

“That was such a good idea,” Matt mumbled, a new tablet under his tongue.

“The bath?” she said, curling back up on the couch with her laptop balanced on the arm. He nodded. “Feeling better?”

“Okay,” he said with a shrug, sniffing and rubbing his running nose. “‘Nother hot flush. It’s not so bad.” Claire took that to mean that he was feeling terrible but too macho to admit it.

She had the TV on low in the background whilst she scrolled aimlessly on Twitter, and he just sat, head tilted to it as he nibbled on a banana once the Suboxone had been absorbed. He seemed to be doing better for a while, but then she noticed that he was suddenly breathing in and out rapidly. Alarmed, she shut her laptop, and asked, “Are you alright?”

“Fine,” he said, then tried to heave in another breath, dropping the banana skin onto the coffee table. “Is the TV on still?”

“Yeah. Want me to turn it off?”

He nodded rapidly and wrapped his arms around his legs, eyes squeezed shut. Claire fumbled for the remote. “What was that tablet you gave me?”

“Suboxone,” she said slowly.

Matt licked his lips and shook his head. “Why-- it feels weird--”

Claire got up - to do what she didn’t know, but she couldn’t sit half a room away from him on the opposite couch when he was obviously in distress. “Okay, tell me what you’re feeling?”

He ignored the question. “Did you turn the TV off?”

She nodded. “Shit, sorry. Just nodded.”

Matt rocked slightly, his eyes wide and wild, darting from side to side. “I can hear it,” he whispered. “Picking it out of the-- the silence. Are-- are you sure you gave me Suboxone?”

“Um, yeah, pretty sure--”

“I can’t-- I can’t--” Matt’s breath stopped again, hitching, then he heaved in a rapid few inhales. “I need dope, _fuck_ , I can’t handle this--”

“Okay, Matt, I need you to try and slow your breathing down for me, okay?” His head jerked backwards. “Matt-- in, okay? Slowly. And out.”

He made half an attempt, then shook his head again, face crumpling. “The Suboxone-- it’s--” He thumped his fist to his chest, once, twice, three times. “My heart--”

Shit. _Shit_ , she should’ve done this in a hospital. God, she was an idiot to think she could supervise a withdrawal from home. Claire grabbed his hand gently to stop him hitting himself, then crouched at his feet and laid it over her clavicles so he could feel the rise and fall of her ribs. “Matt,” she said firmly. “I need you to calm down. Breathe with me.”

“I can’t, I can’t,” he groaned. His head ducked down and he swayed forward, tilting his body away from hers, but his hand still lay where she’d put it. “I’m gonna die, I’m gonna d-- die and I can’t handle this--”

“Matt, you need to tell me what else you’re feeling or I can’t help you.”

“That wasn’t Suboxone, was it? What-- what did you--” His fingers twitched on her chest.  He swallowed and refocused, a sudden calm clarity to his quiet voice. “I’m scared.” The evenness to his voice snapped into unadulterated fear. “I’m never-- I’m never scared--”

Then it hit her. He wasn’t experiencing unlisted side effects from the Suboxone. “Matt, have you ever had a panic attack before?”

Matt’s face jerked to hers, all screwed up. “No. This isn’t-- I think I’m having a heart attack--”

He wasn’t having a heart attack. She’d seen enough of both to know the difference. “Matt,” she said calmly, “I need you to try to focus on your breathing, okay?”

“Get away from me,” he wheezed. “You-- what did you give me?”

“You’re having a panic attack,” Claire assured him, trying to keep her voice even.

“I’m not having a g-- god damn panic attack,” he snapped, then stumbled to the bathroom.

Claire bolted after him; he collapsed in front of the toilet and pulled his fingers out of his mouth just in time to throw up. “Matt-- Jesus! You’ve already absorbed it!”

He retched again, his ribcage heaving horribly. Then, apparently done, he shoved himself so he was up against the bathtub, again curled up with nose between his knees as he trembled and wheezed his way through a couple of curses. Claire flushed the toilet, the noise making him flinch, then sank down in front of him. “I’m kneeling in front of you and I promise I’m going to stay with you. Can you try and focus on your breathing for me?”

They ended up sat there for probably around fifteen minutes until Matt’s breathing evened out; she assured him he was safe, that he was going to pull through, and asked him a few innocuous questions to try and direct his thoughts away from the fear. She ended up sitting cross-legged across from him because the tiles weren’t doing anything good for her knees, then once he’d properly calmed down, they ended up in a silence that made Matt fidget. He did the little upright shuffle embarrassed teenage boys did when she walked into their cubicle, and asked for a new t-shirt.

Claire fetched one, and when she returned and handed it to him, he mumbled, “Sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Claire said tiredly. “What the hell triggered that? You seemed to be doing fine.”

He cleared his throat awkwardly, and he slid the t-shirt on over his head with a certain timing that gave the impression he was doing it just for the sake of not staying still. “I just-- I got--” He paused. “I don’t know. I guess I just got paranoid.” She waited for him to elaborate, but it was clear that was all he was going to say on the matter.

“What do you need right now?”

He shot her a wry grin, which was kinda undermined by how badly he was trembling, but points for trying. “You mean asides from dope?”

“Yeah. Asides from that.”

He got a flighty look, mouth pressed into a thin line. “Can you just come where I can feel you’re there?” Matt looked apologetic and guilty to even ask.

Claire just shuffled up beside him, their arms brushing. His eyes shuttered closed, and then he let out a grunt of sob, one that sounded like he’d not at all intended for it to work up through his throat. He began to try to apologise again. She just leaned into him and muttered, “It’s fine, Matt. You’re doing so well.”

It was abundantly clear that he didn’t believe her, by his thick sniff and sharp shake of his head, but he didn’t say any more on it - he just hung his head and hiccuped a few times as he very obviously tried to stop himself from crying.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TWs: vomiting, descriptions of IV heroin use and other drug abuse, panic attacks, suicide mentions, light ableism.
> 
> Some additional words/terminology (sorry for the super long author's note!)
> 
> The Spanish translates to:  
> "What are you going to do with him?"  
> "I suppose I'll take him up to my apartment."  
> "Are you crazy?"  
> "Completely. Now give me a hand."
> 
> Fent - fentanyl - an incredibly strong and dangerous opiate that heroin is often laced with to make the high stronger; it's very deadly, even in small doses (and, as an aside, if you're using MDMA/MDA/ecstasy, cocaine, LSD, or meth, USE A DRUG TESTING KIT because fent is beginning to show up in many street drugs, especially in America. You can get them from dancesafe.org, where you can get fentanyl testing strips for as little as $2.)
> 
> Narcan - an opiate inhibitor used on people who are overdosing - it would catapult the user into withdrawals as all opiates are, essentially, cancelled out
> 
> Skin popping - injecting into the skin instead of a vein
> 
> There will be one more chapter and an epilogue to this, 19k-ish in total. The next chapter will be out by the end of next week. Hope you enjoyed, any comments or concrit are very welcome, and you can catch me on [tumblr](http://sleepymoritz.tumblr.com/). My beta readers and I all put out a Daredevil Secret Santa fic this year, so check out the [collection](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/DD_SecretSanta_2018/works) for some great reading material!


	2. Awaking From the Sickness, Calm and Sane, and in Reasonably Good Health

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from the intro to Naked Lunch; "I awoke from The Sickness at the age of forty-ﬁve, calm and sane, and in reasonably good health except for a weakened liver and the look of borrowed ﬂesh common to all who survive."
> 
> This chapter has some descriptions of unsafe drug use, toxic relationships, and, of course, even more vomiting.

 

Though that night had fewer disturbances than the past two, Claire was awoken by soft, hitching breathing. Her thoughts went immediately to three possibilities - that he was having another panic attack, that he actually _was_ having a heart attack this time, or that he’d choked, again, on his vomit.

But just as that part of her brain urgently demanded of her _okay, so what are you going to do about it?_ she realised that it wasn’t any of the above. Matt was crying again.

For a moment, she considered just-- letting him. He’d bared his vulnerabilities to her more times than she could count over the past few days and God knows he’d probably like the privacy. But maybe he didn’t, and Claire had spent too many nights feeling really goddamn alone to just let someone cry by themselves. So she made a noise in the back of her throat as though she was just waking up, and Matt’s breathing stopped dead.

“... Matt?” she asked sleepily. He hummed in response, a quiet and crackling noise. “You okay? Sounds like you’re crying.”

Matt sniffed thickly. “I’m good. Sorry. I’m just--” He cut himself off. “I don’t know why I’m being like this.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Go back to sleep, Claire,” he murmured softly, his voice wobbling. “I’m fine. Really.”

“Matt…”

“I’m good. No need to worry about me.”

The facade was broken somewhat by Matt hiccuping and making another muffled noise. Men and their goddamn hurt. “Would you be okay if I came and sat next to you?”

He sniffed thickly and shifted on his couch. “Okay,” he said eventually. “Sure.”

Claire grabbed her phone to use it as a torch, about to warn Matt for the light before her still sleepy brain reminded her that he couldn’t see it anyway. Matt was shuffling up so that he was slouched against one arm of the couch with the blankets tucked up to his shoulders, and Claire took the other side. “You’re gonna have to give me something here,” she said, pulling at the covers and setting her phone back down on the ground. It felt somehow odd in the quiet of the night to have the advantage of light, though she could see his outline, cast sharply from the yellow streetlights. She realised that she’d never actually asked the degree to which he was blind, though she’d never seen him overtly react to a light source.

“Oh. Right, yeah, sorry.” He let the blanket go, slouching down further to try and keep covered and shivering slightly. In the process, his leg knocked against her knee. A slightly awkward and complicated moment ensued where Matt lifted the contact away, then thought better of it, dropping his knee back down so they were touching - just _slightly_ \- a small pool of heat generating through their sleep clothes.

Claire leaned her head against the back of the couch, just watching him for a moment. Sharing blankets, too-- it was intimate on an odd level, where it wasn’t but really kind of was. It obviously wasn’t something she ever did with patients either, and the line was beginning to blur for her. Matt wasn’t a friend in any realistic sense but she wasn’t at work and he wasn’t a patient. It was all just super fucking surreal. This whole thing had been. “You know it’s okay to not be okay.”

Matt huffed a laugh. A slight shifting or rubbing noise; he was playing with the fabric of his clothes or the blanket, possibly. “Heard that one before, yeah.”

“I know I haven’t known you long, Matt,” Claire said with a sigh. “But I know that no one gets better by bottling shit up. So talk.”

“Do you--” Matt stopped himself. “Who do _you_ talk to?”

Claire paused, not exactly expecting him to turn the question back on her. Though her instinct was just to deflect - _this isn’t about me, this is about you_ \- she wasn’t at work. She could share her thoughts, her life. It wouldn’t hurt him. “I talk to my mom a lot,” she admitted. “I have some friends from college, too. I don’t have a best friend or anything - I guess it depends what the problem is.”

“How do you-- how can you just--?”

“Talk?”

Matt shrugged.

“... What do you think will happen if you talk?”

“I don’t think anything will happen,” Matt began, then didn’t follow up on that. He sucked in a deep breath. “I’m-- it’s really stupid.”

Claire shifted slightly, curling her hand over her stomach under the covers. “You’re fine, Matt. Go ahead.”

Matt’s head turned, casting his curved profile in the light, the skin of his brow wrinkling as he frowned. “My ex left me.”

Classic. “When was this?”

Matt scratched the back of his head sheepishly. “Over two years ago, give or take.”

Claire did a double take. “She left you… two years ago.”

“I know, I know it’s stupid,” Matt rushed to explain. “I know it is - I don’t know what the hell is wrong with me. I was asleep then I was dreaming of her and I-- I don’t dream much on dope and-- I could, uh. Feel her.”

“Feel her,” Claire said back to him, deadpan.

“Not in _that_ way,” he said, so sternly that it made her laugh. “I don’t know. I guess it’s just how I see people in dreams. Well, sometimes I just _know,_ but usually they have to touch me or say something or I don’t know they’re there.”

Claire settled back a little on the couch. “Huh. You know, I never really thought about how blind people dream. Do you ever dream, like...?”

“Like I’m sighted?”

“Yeah.”

“I wasn’t always blind,” Matt said wryly.

“You weren’t?”

“I got blinded. I haven’t had sight for… Jesus. Coming up twenty years now. I don’t dream in pictures anymore.” He shifted, his hand coming up to gesture, the light catching it for a flash before he dropped it back down. “I don’t like sighted dreams, anyway. They-- they’re sort of… Twisted. My memories, uh, they aren’t accurate anymore, if they ever were, so the building blocks are just, well. Shit.”

Claire’s silence went on just a beat too long; Matt huffed. “Sorry,” she said distractedly, trying to sort through it in her head. “I just kinda… Can’t imagine it.”

“I know, it probably is a bit weird to think about.” He shrugged. “But it’s just how it is for me. I’m more than used to it. I don’t understand how sighted people don’t get freaked out when they see scary things in dreams.”

“Well, we do,” Claire said. “Those are nightmares.”

“But if you’re seeing it, you can know that it isn’t real.”

“Well, you can’t tell if something’s real or not in a dream, really. And a lot of people will say that you can _only_ trust what you can see.”

“Well, maybe that’s why I have trust issues, then.” Claire laughed, taken aback by the joke, and Matt grinned cheekily in response. He gestured again, the movement remarkably sharp and-- real, almost, like she was finally meeting the guy who went to Columbia, and gathered up his argument. “Wouldn’t you say it’s scarier to hear or feel something than it is just to see it? I’ve been reliably informed that horror films just aren’t that scary without all the noises.”

Claire chuckled, shaking her head slightly. “Y’know, I’ve never thought to rank the senses like that. I guess, maybe. In real life, I can deal with someone who’s passed out a lot easier than someone screaming their little heart out.”

“See? I’m right.”

“Hey, hang on,” she said. “It’s easier because they’re not distracting me. It’s nice not to hear it, but if they’re awake and screaming, they’re usually resisting treatment, too.”

Matt snorted. “Yeah, sure. But a baby crying is harder to listen to than it is to watch.”

“You’re talking out your ass. When was the last time you _saw_ a baby crying?”

He laughed. “Okay. Sure. You got me.”

“So you dreamt of your ex,” Claire prodded after another moment’s pause. “Did she leave you because of the drugs?”

Matt chuckled lowly. “No. Drugs and her and me. It was a threesome.”

Claire hadn’t ever had much of a run in with recreational drugs - weed, a little bit, but not much. When she lived at home, her parents were too strict, and when she moved out for college, she didn’t have the time or the friends or the connections. She’d been taught all the ways that drugs could cause complications with medication, all the ways someone who’s high will react to treatment, and high people came through all the time, but most of them just needed a bed for a few hours while they came down. Though in her opinion almost all drugs weren’t worth it, she couldn’t help a certain dark fascination with the way _those people_ lived, which had been especially strong in college; those who lived insouciantly, hedonistically. It seemed very much so like a underbelly to the college experience that would, on occasion, crest into her own for just a fleeting moment before sinking back down into mystery - someone would show up high to a party, or she’d be offered drugs by a stoner in a beanie hat, or a friend-of-a-friend had the worst trip like you wouldn’t believe. Then _those people_ would sink back into wherever they came from, obscure until they rose again.

Now the other sat in her living room and she was starting to wonder what the hell she was thinking. “You do them a lot together?”

“Oh, yeah,” Matt said. “We _did_ drugs.”

Curiosity. She couldn’t help it. “Like what?”

Matt shrugged. “If you’ve heard of it, we took it. I can give you a laundry list.” Claire snorted, so Matt just took that rightfully as a no and carried on. “I-- hah. I actually didn’t always know what I was taking. I’d just trust her that it was good.”

“That’s _ridiculously_ dangerous.” Claire wanted to throw her hands up - just when it couldn’t get any worse. “Why the hell would you do that?”

“I don’t know,” Matt said, casually thoughtful. “Why do some people like it when their partners-- I don’t know, tie them up? Sometimes it’s just nice to give over.” Then, quickly, like his face was red and he knew he’d let on too much, too much for a stranger and too much for tonight: “I never got badly hurt.”

“Badly,” she repeated sceptically. “You’re a _heroin addict_.”

Matt exhaled sharply, a bit annoyed. “I knew I was taking Oxy when she gave it to me. The worst I got was a couple bad trips.”

“You knew you were taking the Oxycontin?”

“Yeah.”

“I never got why people did that,” Claire said, shaking her head. “You must know it’s dangerous.”

“Taking an opiate once isn’t going to get you hooked, Claire. You probably give people opiates all the time without even thinking about it.” It was a little condescending, as though she wasn’t a medical expert. And, yeah, it _was_ true, but it still sat with her wrong. She was prescribing them to alleviate pain, not for _fun_. “And… Okay, think of it like this. You remember D.A.R.E.? How it said that everything was going to kill you and everything was dangerous?”

“Sure.”

“Well, I grew up _really_ Catholic, and it was like that, but a _million_ times worse. Then you try alcohol and weed and nothing happens so you wonder what all the fuss was about. And you learn that most drugs are not in and of themselves dangerous. People. Humans. What we do with free will is the dangerous thing.”

“That’s-- a _lot_ of drugs have insane potential side effects,” Claire pointed out, almost offended at the notion. “To say they’re not dangerous is just plain inaccurate.”

“Who cares about side effects? Side effects never happen to _you_ , especially when you’re a college student--”

“ _What_ \--”

“And the one side effect that will _never_ happen is getting hooked. So it isn’t dangerous, because you’re not in danger.”

Claire got it, suddenly. Damn lawyers arguing at stupid o’clock in the morning. “That’s the justification.”

Matt got a pleased tone in his voice. “That’s the justification. And the kicker for opiates is that-- uh, well, I at least, never got a hangover, if you could call it that. I could take some painkillers and feel absolutely fine. When I was high I was always confident, better at socialising, I didn’t get as angry or sad or crazy. Sometimes, I--” Matt cut himself off. The eloquence to his speech was beginning to deteriorate as he shifted, not trying to argue but to express. “Sometimes being high was the only time I felt like I-- that I was even the same sort of creature as all these other people.”

Quietly, Claire asked, “Is that why you got addicted?”

“For me,” he replied, slowly, deliberately, “drugs were fun, until they weren’t. An escape, too. God knows I’ve wanted to run away, become another person. I can use them sensibly, but not in that state of mind.”

She _really_ doubted that - it seemed delusional because he’d been given the opportunity to do that and ended up the addict anyway. But she didn’t want to argue with him about it, either. “Did you succeed,” she said instead, maybe only a little bit wry, “in becoming another person?”

Matt considered. “Maybe,” he said. “But-- not completely. I don’t recognise myself, but I do. I always figured that-- well, my dad, he used to tell me that dogs are just a couple missed meals away from being wolves. All it takes is the right situation. I guess he was trying to teach me about, y’know, respect animals or they’ll hurt you or whatever, but… Yeah.”

At first glance, it seemed like an unrelated thought, but she _got_ it. It reminded her of something that had always stuck with her, ever since she first heard it in college, that had helped her to come to terms with mean people in her life, and how it was, ultimately, their choice to be bad. “Have you ever heard that old Cherokee story? About the grandfather and the grandson and the two wolves?”

“I… No. I don’t think so.”

“Well, the story goes that there was a guy who felt like he had two wolves inside of him, constantly at war. I don’t know if this is a true story, or a parable, or what, but anyway - one wolf represented everything good. Honour, love, peace. Then the other wolf represented greed, anger, arrogance. And the wolves were always fighting. The guy asked his grandfather which one was going to win, and his grandfather replied, ‘The one you feed.’”

She let it sit, and Matt fiddled, thought, his chest rising and falling slowly. “I don’t--” His mouth worked for a moment, before he carried on. “I don’t know what to do.”

“About what?” Matt jerked his shoulders up, then suddenly got up with a hiss and began walking a strange path that quickly became apparent was just pacing because of restless legs, not him actually going anywhere. Conversation over. “So your ex didn’t leave you because of the drugs.”

“I don’t really know,” Matt said, his voice oscillating as he walked all corners of the room, hands outstretched, clicking oddly sometimes.

“What do you think?”

“Well, she just… left. Probably, yeah, she didn’t like how I used pills so much, y’know, she meant for opiates to be a fun social thing, not for me to take so I could go to lectures high. But… I honestly have no clue - tried calling her, went to her apartment, asked around her friends. They said she’d gone back to Greece.”

“Jesus,” Claire said. “That’s… really fucked up.”

Matt shrugged. “I probably did something.”

She wondered how bad his addiction had been at that point; if he was downplaying it by saying that he didn’t know. “Have you contacted her since?”

“Nope. She deleted her social media accounts and I guess ditched her cell. Total mystery. Pisses me off that I still think of her.”

Claire tucked her hair behind her ear out of her eyes, as though it’d really matter that either of them could see each other clearly right now. “I had this ex, once. Mike. He liked to keep secrets. A lot of them.”

“I’m sorry,” Matt said, really pausing for the first time, backlit again by the window.

“It was years ago-- anyway. I used to dream about him sometimes, even a year after we broke up,” Claire admitted. “I don’t think it’s _that_ unusual.”

“ _Used_ to?” he parroted, his head tilting slightly, a blink and you miss it moment.

Claire snorted. “Yeah. He came across me again in the ER because one of his dumbass friends hit him over the head with a hockey stick. He apologised for acting how he did. The dreams stopped. I guess my brain got the clue that it was over by that point.”

Matt shifted, then came and sprawled back down on the couch. Their knees didn’t touch this time. “Did you forgive him?”

“Absolutely not,” Claire said. Matt laughed softly. “No. I don’t care anymore - life is _way_ too short to get that hung up over shithead men - but I won’t let anything like _that_ happen again.”

Matt’s head jerked down slightly. “I guess it’s kinda horrifying, right?” He sniffed thickly. “To think that-- that you might just always end up doing the exact same shit.” She wanted to point out that their situations weren’t really the same; Claire not wanting to fall for another cheat was not the same as Matt being terrified of always being an addict.

“Well, the only person who can change how you behave is, unfortunately, you.”

He hung his head. “Well. I hope I can.”

She sighed and nudged her leg against his. “I really, really hope so too, Matt.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

When Claire woke the next morning, it took her a moment to place what was going on. As she blearily opened one eye, the couch opposite hers had sheets dripping off it, her phone buzzing insistently on the ground. She groaned and patted around to find her cell to turn off the alarm, then sat up on her couch, the one opposite Matt’s, and yawned.

“Morning,” she said, rubbing her eyes, her voice a little rough from sleep.

“Morning,” he replied buttering toast at the counter in the Delta Omega hoodie she’d found earlier. It really was big on him. “Did I wake you in the night, after--?”

“No,” she lied easily. “I was pretty zonked.”

His mouth twitched into a smile. “Yeah. Must’ve been.”

“Did you sleep at all?”

“Here and there,” Matt said casually. He still had deep bags under his eyes and he looked utterly wrung out. She’d woken a few times in the night after their conversation; a couple times to him going to the bathroom or just plain being restless, and once to what had sounded like possibly the tail end of another panic attack or maybe a nightmare. Of course he didn’t want to wake her for it. If she was a healthcare provider trying to sell Matt more Subutex, she probably would’ve upped his prescription to 24 or more, but she wasn’t. Too much buprenorphine could cause a high that might tempt Matt to attempt to abuse it, or induce side effects just as bad as the withdrawal itself, so she thought that being conservative might be better in the long run. “Toast?”

“Maybe.” Claire wandered up to the kitchen after a few luxurious stretches. It was oddly domestic to have some stranger in her house making food, but since she’d seen him at his absolute worst, it didn’t feel so out of place. Besides, she’d had men she’d known for less time than this make her breakfast before. “Find everything okay?”

“Yeah, eventually. Although you keep your bread in a stupid place.”

“How is the fridge a stupid place to keep bread?”

“Have you never heard of a bread bin?” Matt turned to her with an intense expression, but then broke into a grin. She shook her head and laughed, crossing her hands over her chest. “I stuck my hand in the butter accidentally, though. So if there’s any fingerprints in it, that’s why. I did wash my hands.”

“Before, or after?” she asked with in unimpressed look.

“Before. I just licked my fingers after. It’s good butter.”

“I’m going to make my own toast,” Claire told him with a grimace. Matt laughed and took his plate to his couch, his shaking hand outstretched in front of him the whole way, making a couple of experimental clicks, his head tilting carefully and eyes wide as he listened out. The same noises as last night. “You’re echolocating.”

“Yeah,” he said completely casually, finding the back of the couch then shuffling round to the one he’d slept in last night. “Haven’t done it in a while. My hearing always goes a bit shot when I’m high. Listen, I-- I’m probably well enough to get out your hair.”

“You’re not,” Claire told him as he sank with a sigh into the makeshift bed. “And to be frank, I don’t trust that if I let you go, you won’t just go and relapse.”

“I’m on bupe, though,” he said, a little bit offended, his leg bouncing so fast it was practically vibrating. “I’ll be fine.”

“Matt,” Claire said levelly, “I don’t want to give you all the Suboxone.”

“I’m a big boy. You don’t need to worry about me.”

“Yeah, and I’ve never heard an addict say _that_ before.”

Matt’s eyebrows scrunched together, and he took a bite of his toast sulkily. “Well, I can’t just sit in your apartment all day. You’ve got work.”

“Yeah. I figured out what you’re going to do.”

“Oh?”

“I did some googling. Today there’s three NA meetings happening in the Hell’s Kitchen community centre,” she told him. “One at three, one at six thirty, and another at nine.” Matt didn’t respond to that; he just looked unhappy. Claire wasn’t exactly delighted by it either, but it’d have to do. “I’m going to give you a notebook, and I want you to get whoever runs it to write a note that you attended.”

“But you said you were finishing past midnight.”

“Yup,” she said. “I’m gonna give you ten dollars, and you’re going to take a taxi to Metro-General, and ask for me at the desk. I’ll find you a place to lie low until I finish. Hey, maybe I’ll even be able to squeeze in a STD test while we’re at it.”

Matt didn’t laugh. “Aren’t you worried I’m going to just go out and get more H?”

Claire just shrugged helplessly, then remembered Matt couldn’t see that. “Maybe you will, maybe you won’t. I don’t think you will.” A heavy sigh settled on her chest until it felt like her ribs were pressing down on her lungs. “You know this life will kill you. Time to make a decision.”

He didn’t respond to that, either.

Once lunchtime rolled around she managed to get him to take some multivitamins, eat some more cereal and take a 16mg Subutex dose. It left him paralysed on the bathroom floor in another spell of dizzying nausea and what Matt declared to be the worst high he’d ever had before some apparently very cathartic throwing up.

After the sickness subsided he took another long bath that he’d managed to argue convincingly that he didn’t need supervising during, despite how drowsy he was. Then Claire had a shower and got changed into her work clothes while Matt made himself a packed lunch, and she dug out a half-used notebook from the stationary drawer in her bedroom.

Though she’d been kinda worried about Matt finally leaving of the house, the moment they stepped out onto the sidewalk he stopped abruptly, tilting his head up to the sun with a big grin. “I can feel it,” he murmured, mostly to himself, it seemed. A moment of complete reverence, his hand tightening just so on her elbow. He broke into the widest, most genuine grin she’d seen from him yet. “I can feel it _properly._ ”

“Is it weird?” she asked. “Being able to feel everything again?”

Matt’s head tilted back down to earth, and he continued walking. “A bit. I like being able to feel again, but it’s--” He huffed a laugh. “I’m a little sensitive right now, that’s all I’m saying. Smell, taste, touch. Um. My head. It’s all waking up.”

Just as he said it, they passed a leaking pile of trash bags, left out on the curb by a grocers. It was gross to her under the hot summer sun; she couldn’t imagine what it’d be like to him.

For all the years she’d lived in Hell’s Kitchen, she’d never actually been to the community centre. It turned out to be a grey and unassuming building, and inside the walls were plastered with colourful posters; mental health awareness, environmental issues, information for parents about drugs and other delinquent activities. The further into the bowels of the building they went, the more anxious Matt got, which was only given away by how white his knuckles were over his cane.

They eventually reached the room listed on the info post online. Matt didn’t have a chance to hover, because Claire grabbed his arm (resulting in a undignified yelp) and dragged him in. It wasn’t too busy - only a handful of people, really - who milled about, either sitting hunched over in folding chairs or chatting over the coffee machine. A woman who had been shuffling about a handful of beaten papers looked up at them and smiled, so Claire went to her first.

“Do you run this group?” Claire asked.

The woman glanced between them. “I’m one of treasurer of this meeting, yes.”

Claire gestured to Matt. “He’s three days clean and needs to stay in this meeting.”

Matt ducked his head, flushing slightly when the woman made a happy cooing noise. “Three days? Well done! Keep coming back!” She turned to Claire, her cheerful expression faltering slightly. “Well, I can’t stop him if he wants to leave.”

“I’m literally right here,” Matt mumbled. “I won’t leave, Claire. I’m on Subutex - there’d be no point.”

“That wouldn’t stop you,” Claire pointed out.

“Sorry, are you his--?”

“I--” Claire began, then laughed, the utter absurdity of the situation becoming apparent once again. “I’m not his rehab worker. I knew of him because he came to my volunteer job once, but we only properly spoke three days ago. He’s been staying at mine during his detox.”

The trusted servant looked completely astounded at that. “That must’ve been a ride.”

“It was,” Claire said. “I have to get to work now. Matt, show her the notebook.” Matt dutifully pulled out the little notebook she’d given him. “Once the meeting is over, could you sign this for me? So I know he attended.”

“Sure,” the woman said, then turned to Matt, who’d tucked the notebook back into his pocket. “We’re starting soon. Want me to grab you a coffee?”

“Can I have that?” he asked, turning to Claire. “With the bupe?”

“Nothing saying you can’t. Enjoy it. First coffee in how long?”

“A while,” Matt admitted.

“Well, ours is pretty good,” the woman said. “There’s a chair at your two o’clock, coupla paces ahead. I’ll bring the coffee over for you. I’m Carol, by the way.”

“I have to go to work,” Claire said.

Matt nodded, and reached out to squeeze Claire’s arm, flashing her a tight smile. “I’ll see you later,” Matt replied quietly.

He then began to shuffle over, and Carol split off to the coffee machine. Claire retreated out of the room, but before she could completely leave, she cast one last look to Matt. He was just settling into his chair, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, cane tucked between his legs and resting against his shoulder. A grim look of determination was making his mouth into a firm line, his brows draw together.

Then Carol returned, a gentle hand on Matt’s shoulder. His head jerked up, and he managed a smile for her as he accepted the styrofoam cup of coffee. As her hand slipped away, she said something with a small smile on her lips, and he turned to reply as she sat next to him.

A delicate hope burst in her chest. She smiled to herself, then closed the door behind her as she left.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Claire spent the day trying to distract herself from the horrible feeling that left to his own devices, Matt wouldn’t show up again. But by the time the clock finally crept to eleven she was called over by the bemused receptionist, who gestured to a corner of the room. There was Matt; head hanging, slouched on the uncomfortable chairs bolted to the floor, his foot tapping maniacally.

“Hi, Matt,” Claire said.

“Hey,” Matt replied, lifting his head marginally. He sounded completely exhausted, deep bruises under his drooping eyes. He fumbled for his jacket pocket, then held out the notebook for her.

She took it out of his hand and flipped it open. There, three notes in different handwriting. Each either congratulated him on showing up or told him to keep coming back. It was really goddamn sweet. “Did you pick up a chip?”

Matt shook his head. “I don’t feel clean yet,” he mumbled. “Can I go sleep somewhere?”

“One second, let me check your pupils,” she said, putting a hand over his hair to gently tilt his head upwards, which Matt leant into. He forced his eyelids up and she shone a pen torch in them to get a better look. They were fairly normal; maybe a little bit big, but nothing worrying. Again, though, they didn’t shrink at all. “Can you see light?” He shook his head. “Do you know how big your pupils are normally?”

He frowned, his eyes rolling up into his skull for a moment before settling back down again. “Why would I know that?”

“Maybe someone’s commented on it before, if they were especially large,” she suggested.

“It’s a side-effect of the withdrawals.”

“I know that. I just don’t know what your normal is.” Claire clicked the pen torch off and let go of his head. His eyes drooped again immediately. “They’re not constricted, though. Congratulations.”

Matt gave her a tight smile. “Sure.”

“How are you feeling?”

“Everything hurts,” he said, startlingly honest. “I threw up a couple more times. Starting to get hungry, too. A guy called Malcolm gave me some cake, but that was in the second meeting.” A pause. “How are you?”

“I’m good, Matt,” she replied, a little amused. Matt nodded, shrinking back into his seat, satisfied with the answer.

Luckily, it was a quiet night in Hell’s Kitchen, so she wasn’t urgently needed and could take the time to settle Matt in somewhere. She took him up a couple levels, going to the surgery recovery ward to check if there were any spare rooms since all the short term patients who weren’t staying overnight would’ve been cleared out by now. The desk worker gave her an odd look.

“This ain’t a hotel,” she said critically.

Claire sighed. “I know. But he needs a place to sleep while I finish my shift. C’mon, Jane. It’s just for a couple hours.”

The desk worker seemed to abruptly realise that she didn’t really care that much and gave Claire the key to a room that had been locked up after it was vacated that afternoon. It’d already been turned over, and the moment Matt felt the crisp sheets, he clambered onto the bed and face planted the pillow with a big, happy groan.

Claire snorted and left him to it for a moment to go to the ward’s kitchenette, which had meals stacked up in the fridge that had been prepared in the kitchen earlier that day. Putting one of the fried rice meals in the microwave, she then ducked into her staff room locker to get the painkillers and antidiarrheals she’d brought in that afternoon. By the time she returned the food was done, so she plated it up and took everything to Matt’s room. His boots lay haphazardly on the ground and his collapsed cane lay on the bedside table next to him, and the man himself was still face-down on the bed.

“Rise and shine. Let’s get some food and painkillers down you.”

Matt took a moment, but he dragged himself upright with a grunt. She handed him the plate with a fork and though he began wolfing down it down in record speed, he quickly lost his appetite and only ended up eating half the meal. Feeling pessimistic, Claire put a card pot on the bedside table and put his hand over it so he knew where to throw up, then dragged him up to show him around the en suite bathroom. He gulped down half the bottle of water with the pills.

Basic needs reluctantly seen to, he promptly shoved himself back down onto the bed. “Thank you, Claire,” he said quietly, slurred from exhaustion. “You’ve done so much for me.”

“It’s okay.”

“Can you take the food away? It smells really strong.”

It didn’t, but she said, “Sure,” anyway. “If you need anything, just ring the bell.” She put his hand down on the alert button. He snatched it away, the tips of his ears going flushed again. Right.

 

 

* * *

 

 

They got out of the hospital without Matt making a break for the medicine store, even when Claire stopped by one to nab some antibiotics. He fell asleep on the bus, head lolling onto her shoulder, and he fell asleep again the moment they got in, but woke himself up after half an hour with more restless leg bouncing.

He dragged himself up and paced for a couple minutes, then wandered over to the kitchen where she was preparing dinner. “Want to try some real food?” she asked.

“Smells great,” Matt said agreeably. “What is it?”

“Ropa vieja,” she said, giving the mix in the pot a stir. “It’s a Cuban dish. Shredded beef, basically.”

“Old clothes,” he said with a smile. “It smells more appetising than its name.”

Claire looked up from the pan, completely taken aback. “You speak Spanish?” He shrugged modestly. “ _Entonces, eres una caja de sorpresas_.”

He grinned. “ _Gracias. Era mi intención_.” His accent wasn’t _that_ American, which was surprising. It was pretty uncommon for white Americans to be anywhere near fluent in Spanish, so it was nice that he’d put in the effort.

Once it was plated up, they migrated to her tiny dining table to eat, Claire broached the slightly uncomfortable topic of when the hell Matt was going to get out of her apartment. Obviously, she didn’t phrase it like that, but Matt was clearly on the mend. There wasn’t much more she could do for him now.

“I can go tomorrow morning,” Matt said.

“Uh-huh. And where will you stay?”

“I don’t know,” he admitted, picking at his food. “I might stay in a hostel. I have people I can borrow off who won’t care when I can pay it back.”

“Columbia connections pay off,” Claire said mildly.

He chuckled. “Not so much. I met him at a dealer’s place. His parents are incredibly rich and he doesn’t know what to do with his money. He’d probably lend it to me, as long as he knew I wasn’t just going to re up with it. He doesn’t like heroin.”

“You could also apply for shelters again.”

Matt shrugged. “Yeah, probably. They’re impossible, though, in New York. But at least I’m clean now, so that should make it easier.”

“What was that guy you knew?” Claire asked. “Your best friend. Could ask him.”

He shook his head firmly. “No. No way.”

Alright, then.

“And what are we going to do about the Suboxone?” Claire asked.

“What about it?”

“I still don’t want to just... pack you away with it. Really, you should keep on with it, but I looked up how much it costs, and I don’t think you’re about to fork out $450 on some medication.”

Matt jerked back, eyes going owlish in alarm. “You stole _four-hundred and fifty dollars_ worth of medication for me?”

She hummed affirmative. “It’s a ripoff, and I don’t care if Indivior get their money or if the hospital makes it back. Plus, stuff like this goes missing literally all the time. Junkies stealing it, nurses and assistants selling it on for a quick buck. It’s not exactly unheard of.”

He didn’t look happy about it, poking his fork at his plate. “Well, I can’t inject bupe, and there’s only so high I can get on it. I don’t want to get high on it, anyway. If I wanted to get high, I’d just stop taking it and find some H to snort.”

“Okay, not _exactly_ promising--”

“Well, what do you want me to say? I’ve spent every day of the past two years high. I can’t--” He dropped his fork. “It’s gonna take time to rewire. But I want to try, so-- believe me, or don’t, but the options are to give it to me or taper me off.”

Claire leaned back in her chair, crossed her arms over her chest as she studied him. To taper Matt off now would, realistically, thrust him back into the deep end, but him dropping by every day was equally unrealistic. She lived a hectic life, and Matt didn’t even seem to own a cell phone at the moment. After a moment, she sighed as well, putting her fork down. “I’ll give you enough for a week. Then we should start thinking of tapering you off into doses with the 2mg tablets. You should start on the antibiotics, too.”

“If you’re going to steal it, I might as well just find find a dealer who can get me some.”

“Matt, you can’t ever speak to a dealer again,” Claire said firmly.

Matt blanched, swallowing hard and turning his head down to his lap. “Oh.” He smiled tightly. “I was friends with some of my dealers.”

“A business relationship, that you are no longer a customer of.” Matt looked genuinely a bit upset at that, and, well, it sucked to no longer be able to speak to friends, but at the same time, it wasn’t like they ever considered him as important as he considered them. “I’m sorry, but you just can’t. You get that, right?”

Matt nodded glumly. “Yeah.” He shifted, and Claire picked up her fork, shovelling in the last of her plate. “I’m not gonna be able to speak to a lot of my friends again, I guess.”

She swallowed, pushed the plate away from her. “Probably not. But you’ll make new friends.”

“And I’m going to have to move apartments, new roommates. Get a job, insurance, new clothes…” Matt trailed off, overwhelmed.

“New haircut,” she added.

“What’s wrong with my haircut?”

“It’s-- Matt,” Claire said, trying to stifle her little giggle. “You look like a _Trainspotting_ extra.”

“Oh, really?” Matt said, humoured, an amused little grin on his face. He ran a hand over his head, fluffing up the downy hair. “I bet the beard doesn’t help.”

“Not really,” Claire agreed. “I have a couple spare razors if you want to take a shot at it tonight.”

They finished eating and Matt insisted he did the washing up while she hunted for her spare razors and some shaving foam, then they relocated to the bathroom with Claire perched on the tub and Matt in front of the sink. She watched him familiarise himself with his tools and space, kinda fascinated by his process.

“I feel like I should offer to do it for you,” she said after a few moments of silence.

Matt— well, it looked as though he was side-eyeing her, though obviously that wasn’t right. His lips twitched up slightly. “I’ve been doing this a while, Claire.”

Fair enough. “I swear I sliced my legs to hell first few times I shaved,” she said, kind apropos of nothing, but it was as good a conversation topic as any.

“Oh, yeah,” Matt agreed, slathering on the shaving cream. “I used to avoid shaving as a teen because I’d rash to hell because of the amount of passes I’d do. It wasn’t so much that it hurt - I just didn’t want people to think I was incapable. By the way, this foam smells way better than men’s. Whoa.”

Claire laughed. “Thanks.” He picked up the razor and felt along the edges of where his finer head hair met the wiry straggles of his beard, deciding on a point just below his cheekbone to start. “Who taught you?”

“Got taught twice,” he said distractedly, then rinsed off the blade. “A priest taught me the first time, but he didn’t do a good job. Hence the rashes. Then this other guy who was blind helped me fine tune. You?”

“Didn’t get taught. I just picked up a razor and went to town.” Matt chuckled. “My mom went ballistic, actually.”

“Yeah? Why?”

“I dunno. Some vague angst about me being slutty, I think.”

“How old were you?”

“Thirteen.”

“Jesus.” Matt did a funny twist to his lower face to stretch the skin. “I bet that was tough.”

“She just worried about me,” Claire said dismissively. “And she didn’t want her baby girl growing up just yet.”

Matt hummed, a little noise of amusement. “Well, I grew up Catholic, so, very sex negative. Basically thought I was going to die if I tried it before marriage.”

“Oh, same. I always used to feel so guilty.”

He chuckled properly this time, taking the razor away from his skin to gesture with it. “Honestly? I still do sometimes.”

Claire laughed. “No. Really?”

“Well, not as often or as bad as when I was a kid, but-- yeah. Sometimes.” He snorted, hands coming up again to carry on shaving. “And you wanna know the funny thing?”

“What?”

“I’m not even _that_ Catholic.”

“Oh, c’mon,” Claire said doubtfully, pulling a face. “You asked me for a rosary.”

“It’s just the rituals I like!” Matt assured, defensive but in good humour. “I used to like being able to recite of the prayers and the hymns and whatever so I could be a know-it-all, not because I actually cared about-- Mary’s immaculate conception or whatever.”

“Do you go to church?”

He shook his head, rinsing off again. “Confession, sometimes. But... it seems pointless. I’ve done so much shit over the past year. Feels like I’m pushing it to ask forgiveness to then immediately go and do it again.”

“Isn’t God supposed to forgive you?” She waved a hand. “Or, I always used to wonder what the point of avoiding sins was if He’d just give me a get out of jail free card anyway.”

Matt smiled wryly. “I worry that one day I’ll run out of cards, mostly.” The smile slipped from his face, expression faltering into something clear and open. “And the point of avoiding sins isn’t to get into heaven. It’s to be a good person. But,” he said, cocking his head to shave where his jaw met his neck, “it’s relative. And people spend a lot more time stressing over the harmless sins than they should.”

“True,” Claire said, then wasn’t entirely sure what to follow up with. She added: “I’m _the_ most lapsed Catholic nowadays. My mom hates that I don’t go to church.”

“Do you argue about it?”

“A little. Not usually. We argue about other stuff. She drives me crazy,” she added with a laugh. “But I love her. I don’t know what I’d do without her.”

Matt hummed. “I don’t think I’ve ever really needed anyone. Beyond, y’know, when I was a kid. I always felt I could look after myself. That I should, really. Where I grew up, it was every kid for himself. By the way, how does the bruise look?”

“It’s kinda greenish, yellowish. It’ll probably fade in the next week or so.” Matt nodded, then prodded it and winced.

“And the rash on my arm?”

“The-- you mean the cellulitis?” He nodded. “It’s the same as it was before.”

He was satisfied by that answer, and continued on shaving. Just as he was almost done, he mumbled, “My track marks are itchy.”

“That’s good. They’re healing. You never said, by the way, why you were beat to shit when I first fished you out of the dumpster.”

“Ah, that was years ago,” Matt said. He felt over his face; he was pretty much done at this point. “I’m a different man now.”

Claire laughed, and Matt gave a cheeky grin to the mirror, eyes crinkling. “Oh, right. Of course. Sorry.”

He shrugged. “Easy mistake to make. Would you believe me if I said I didn’t know?”

“Not particularly.”

“I probably just hit my face while I was climbing in.” He then laughed a little to himself. “Sometimes, junkies just do janky things.” Matt rinsed off the blade as he continued to feel across his skin, doing a little upstroke with his thumb to feel the grain, then seemed to deem himself finished. He splashed some water up onto his face and turned to her, dripping. “How do I look?”

“Babyfaced,” Claire said honestly. His skin had gotten a bit of a rash too, but nothing that wouldn’t fade in a couple hours, and no cuts or anything. She passed him a towel. “But it’s a lot better than the neckbeard.”

“I’ll take it.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

The next morning, she was the first one awake. Matt was sprawled out, face down, his face mushed into the couch cushions as he snored. But by the time she’d gotten back from her shower, he was up and in the kitchen, whisking batter in the jug that they’d laid out the night before so he could make pancakes as he’d promised.

When they sat down with laden plates - the crepes were delicious - they went over Matt’s game plan, which could essentially be summarised to three points. First, apply for any and all welfare he could (which Matt was very unhappy about; she told him to suck it up). Second, get a job and move apartments, and in the meantime, apply for shelters. Third, keep on attending NA and don’t relapse. In essence, don’t make all of this for nothing.

It was an overwhelming list, Claire knew that. It was a headache to do any one of those things individually, never mind all of them as soon as possible, but Matt apparently had enough experience dealing with all of this that he could navigate it by himself. He planned to go to the Lower Manhattan Unemployment Centre, and go to the Supportive Housing Network’s offices to ask them for help, too.

“I found this,” Claire said, handing him a blocky HTC from 2009 - one of those retrospectively tiny proto smartphones - that she’d charged up and dug around in the settings of to double check it actually had accessibility settings, which it did.

He flipped it over in his hands, then ran a finger along the side where the volume buttons were. “A cell phone? Claire--”

“It’s worth about $15, Matt, and all it does is gather dust in my drawers. You need a phone for employers to contact you.”

He nodded and placed it gently on the table. “I have a SIM card in my trunk, but it’s for an iPhone. Those don’t fit in these, right?”

“No, but there’s a SIM in it. I’ve put my number in so we can arrange for you to pick up the rest of your Subutex - that reminds me, did you take the antibiotic this morning?”

“I did, yeah.”

They finished eating, and Matt went and had a shower, dressing in the shirt she’d found him in, freshly laundered. Shaved, alert, and clean, he looked completely different to when she had come across him. He was jovial on his way down the stairs when she followed to see him out of the building, carrying his heavy trunk and chatting animatedly. Once they were down on the stoop, he turned to her, the wind only just ruffling his short hair.

“Thank you, Claire,” he said again, so sincerely with a little crease between his eyebrows.

Ugh, now she was feeling emotional. “C’mere,” she said, pulling him in for a quick hug.

“Okay, okay.” Matt pulled away quickly. “I’ll be in touch.”

Suddenly, it was incredibly urgent to her that she saw him again, and it wasn’t anything to do with _him_ , but a precarious and bubbling hope that what she’d done had actually changed something. She knew it was such a cliché, but it was nonetheless true that what she wanted was to make a difference. That was why she’d studied to be a nurse, why she endured long shifts on her feet, why she stitched up the junkies at the shelter. It didn’t affect her personally if Matt fell through the cracks but, simultaneously, it _really_ fucking did, and it’d be horribly nihilistic if after all of this he fell regardless. “Matt, if it gets difficult, please come find me. Don’t suffer through it alone.”

He nodded, face contorting into a smile. The bruise was a golden yellow, now. “I will.”

Claire wanted to believe him, so goddamn bad. His face went lax, it _closed_ , and it was on that note that he gave her a sharp nod. Then, he walked away.

 


	3. Epilogue: The End of the Junk Line

 

Matt went to the bathroom in the break of his second NA session of the day to follow in the proud, centuries-long junkie tradition of throwing up while trying to hide it. After he was done emptying his stomach of the black coffee he’d been chugging in a futile attempt to stay awake, he slumped back against the panel to the cubicle, shaken and dizzy. He wiped the back of his mouth with a trembling hand, shivered from a cold sweat that cooled his back through his shirt. His solitude was, irritatingly, interrupted by the bathroom door opening.

A knock on his cubicle. “Buddy?” came a voice. “You okay?”

Shit. They probably thought he was taking something that’d disagreed with him. He coughed, trying to smother it with the back of his hand. “I’m good.”

“You know there’s no drugs allowed in meetings, yeah?”

Matt slumped against the wall. “I know.” His voice was weak and rough. He wanted to curl up in a ball and make it stop. He’d been putting on a brave face for Claire, trying not to be too much of an inconvenience, but the past few days had been some of the lowest in his life - and he’d had a _lot_ of low days. She’d caught him once, crying, and the panic attack had been _mortifying -_ it was all bad enough without unloading all the other shit onto her. She had better things to do.

“If you do have anything on you, you need to leave it at the door. You can pick it up later.”

“I don’t have anything on me,” Matt insisted, getting pissed off now.

“Can you open the door for me?”

Matt groaned. He really, really didn't want to, but he clambered up anyway. Limbs weak and aching, he flushed the toilet, and unlocked the cubicle door. “I’m not using," he muttered. "I’m clean.”

“Yeah? How long?”

“Three days,” Matt said, wobbly as he passed the stranger, bending down to the sink to rinse out his mouth. “God,” he groaned, mostly to himself. “I thought I was done with this bit. I’m on bupe and everything.”

“I know how you feel,” the man replied sympathetically. He sounded young, his voice a little bit fried. Concerned.

“Do you?” Matt spat back.

The man snorted - not unkindly, but it still grated. “You’re not alone in this.”

Matt hummed, trying not to sound too bitter about it all, and jerked his head, splashing water onto his face. He wished he had a spare shirt. “You need to pat me down or something?”

“Do you have any drugs on you?”

“No.”

“Then I trust you.”

“That’s funny,” Matt deadpanned, because it really wasn’t.

“Want me to go get you some tea or coffee? A cookie? Have you eaten today?”

Matt’s hands clenched the rim of the sink. He was sick of people’s kindness, and how it made his eyes sting. Pity made his stomach writhe, worse than ever now his head was clear. Everything, it seemed, was worse now his head was clear. Was this what it was to be clean? No fucking wonder he got hooked. “I just need-- I need a moment.”

“I don’t want to leave you alone, buddy,” the man said.

“Go back,” Matt mumbled. “I’m nearly done.”

“It’s okay.”

Matt sighed and bowed his head, the painful tenseness in his arms and shoulders not going away. He was trembling, worse, now. “I thought I was finished,” he whispered. “I just want it to be over. How many times do I have to do all of this? Until I’m not sick anymore?”

The man didn’t respond for a long moment. He shifted, the noise of it echoing through the tiled room. “I don’t know what to tell you.”

Because these were the things that no one ever told him but were becoming increasingly apparent the longer he heard the people speak in Narcotics Anonymous meetings; one, that he wasn’t just _hooked_ , but addicted, and two, the withdrawals might fade, but the worst was yet to come. Matt felt his face twist, scrunch up. He wasn’t sure how any of this could be worth it. Being clean hurt like hell, being a junkie was pure survival, and all of it-- all of it was completely fucking miserable. He let out a shaky breath, one that caught in his throat on it’s way up; the thought of crying in front of another goddamn stranger was horrific to him. “I know.”

“Hey, hey, you’re okay,” the man hushed, a hand coming to his back. Matt immediately, without thinking, rolled his shoulder away, bending over into himself.

“Shit, sorry, I’m still-- sensitive--”

“Oh,” the man said, clearing his throat awkwardly. “Spontaneous orgasms, huh?”

It was Matt who broke the incredibly long silence that followed with a wholly unattractive snort. “Yeah.” He scratched his inner arm absentmindedly; his fingers caught the patch of infection, and the pain that rolled through his body made his head swim for a moment. Everything _hurt_ ,  and the textures of his clothes and really just the whole world were _wrong_ and he just wanted to go lie in a bath where the water was perfectly body-temperature, eat something with no flavour at all and then sleep for a million years. “And I’m staying with a woman at the moment too.”

“Oh my God, _no_ ,” the guy said, which was a pleasantly dramatic response.

“I had to pretend to throw up so I could go - y’know - in her bathroom,” Matt admitted, not entirely sure why he was even talking about this with a guy he just met. “Like, more than once.”

The man laughed loudly. “I accidentally jizzed in a bodega. I thought I was over the worst of it, and then I picked up a really soft stuffed animal as a present for my mom, and-- boom.”

“That’s terrible,” Matt said. He couldn’t help his grin.

“I know! I was there with it in my hand, like, I can’t give this to her now. Had to go and get her chocolates instead.”

Matt straightened up. He didn’t feel that much better, but his stomach had settled. The Suboxone had been a Godsend - three days into his last detox, well, he’d been high again, the moment he could stand upright long enough to go use an ATM - and cut down on his cravings, but the side effects were testing his patience for sobriety too. “ I just realised I didn’t catch your name and we just talked about--”

He laughed again; it was a nice laugh, open and warm. “Malcolm.”

“Matthew Murdock,” he said, holding out his hand. “Ah, shit. I’m not supposed to tell you my surname, am I?”

“It’s all good. Nice to meet you, Matthew,” Malcolm said easily, taking the offered hand in a firm shake. “You’re looking a little better. I think we already went back in, but let’s get you something to eat and drink.”

Matt nodded and picked his cane from where he’d propped it up against the sink counter. “Where’s the kitchen?”

“To the left of this room. Do you, uh… do you want me to lead?” Malcolm’s voice lilted up high at the end of the question, unsure if he should ask.

Matt shook his head, a wry little grin on his lips - a vague and likely ineffectual attempt to disguise how shitty he felt. “I don’t want to spontaneously… yeah, on you.”

Malcolm laughed, and it reverberated around the little space noisily. “Okay, yeah, that’d probably be a good thing. Thanks.” The door creaked on its hinges as Malcolm pushed it open. “C’mon, pal. Let’s get some food down you. You’ll feel better for it.”

Matt sincerely doubted that, but he went anyway. He wasn’t ever one to turn down a free meal.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not entirely sure why this took me nearly a month to get out - well, I was going to make some changes and additions, then decided against it.
> 
> Thanks for reading! All comments and concrit are very welcome. Catch me on tumblr at Sleepymoritz.


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